No man is an island, but there sure are a lot of them

It has been too long since I did an all-map-postcard post. While looking through a stack of cards in my collection, I noticed a number of islands scattered throughout. So, let's take a tour.

We'll start close to home, with the islands of Marth's Vineyard and Nantucket.



Interesting factoids: Martha's Vinyard is the 57th largest island in the United States and Nantucket is famous for being the subject of limericks.

Bermuda is a British territory in the North Atlantic, famous for popularizing a style of uniform shorts.



The Dominican Republic is on the good side of the island of Hispaniola. For the last forty years, they have been able to avoid most of the political turmoil that plagues their island-mate, Haiti.



Jamaica is the birthplace of the Rastafari movement and Reggae music, as well as some pretty good rum. Good jams, mon, good jams.



Christopher Columbus named the Virgin Islands afer Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, shortened to Las Vírgenes, after Saint Ursula and her 11,000 virgins. The islands are divided between the United States and the United Kingdom.







Across the Atlantic in the direction of north Africa lies Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands of Spain. (See more of my Canary Islands map postcards.) The island was formed about 5 million years ago by volcanic eruption. Today its economy depends heavily on tourism.





Finally, let's head over to the northern Aegean Sea. Across the millenia, the island of Thasos has been ruled by Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, Turks, and Bulgarians. Today it is part of the nation of Greece. The island has been strategicaly important because of deposits of lead, silver, gold, copper, calamine and iron.

Canary Islands

I have recently begun trading postcards with other map postcard collectors. The first three cards below are from Héctor, a resident of the Canary Islands, an "Autonomous Community" of Spain, consisting of seven islands.



Contrary to popular belief, the islands were not named after the avian canary. Instead the name comes from the breed of large fierce dogs, the Canary Mastiff (in Spanish, el Presa Canario) that were already present when the ancient Romans established contact with the islands by the sea. The Latin word for dog is canis. The breed of birds were named after the islands...



The economy is based primarily on tourism, which makes up 32% of the GDP. The Canaries receive about 10 million tourists per year. Who wouldn't want to vacation under such a friendly looking sun?



Héctor has begun publishing his own blog, Colección de MAPAS en tarjetas postales, to highlight the map postcards from his own collection. The text is in Spanish, but the images of the map postcards are always interesting.

When I first began correspondence with Héctor I said that I did not have any map postcards from the Canary Islands, but after more searching I rediscovered these two cards that were sent to me by some British friends who like to spend their holidays there:

• According to Tim Ashkar, the women of the islands are mermaids. I find the story a little fishy.


• Christopher Columbus stopped at the Canaries on his way to re-discover the New World in 1492.


• The cuisine of Canary Islands combines traditional Spanish recipes with african and latin-american influences.


• In 1936, Francisco Franco was appointed General Commandant of the Canaries. He joined the military revolt of July 17 which began the Spanish Civil War.